We Owe It All to Dear Leader

The Human Rights Campaign’s blogging on President Obama’s long-awaited executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT employees focuses more on celebrating Obama than on heralding a step forward by LGBT Americans. The posting, With Executive Order, Obama Takes His Place in History, tells us:

“The order, profoundly consequential in its own right, dramatically underscores President Obama’s own LGBT legacy of achievement, unmatched in history … Viewed in full, President Obama’s legacy of achievement is unmatched in history…including the largest conferral of rights in history to LGBT people via the implementation of the Windsor decision….”

There’s also a link “for more information on President Obama’s six-year record of accomplishment.”

Here’s how I would have put it: “Finally, after 5-plus years of ignoring pleas from a voting bloc that has disproportionately supplied funds, labor and votes to his party, President Obama ordered that contractors working for the federal government his administration oversees can’t discriminate against LGBT workers. If organizations claiming to be leading the fight for LGBT equality had exerted more pressure instead of acting as supplicant lapdogs, it would have happened much sooner….”

38 Comments for “We Owe It All to Dear Leader”

  1. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Since when, in your head, has President Obama become Kim Jong-il, and why? So much for civility.

    President Obama’s record on “equal means equal” leaves a lot lacking, but he’s also done quite a bit. In marked contrast to his predecessors.

  2. posted by Doug on

    “. . . focuses more on celebrating Obama. . . ”

    Hey Stephen, sort of reminds me of Bush landing on an aircraft carrier and claiming ‘mission accomplished’.

  3. posted by CraigR on

    Since when, in your head, has President Obama become Kim Jong-il…

    Obviously, Stephen is saying the HRC is treating Obama like Dear Leader. Which is of course true — the blog post is evidence of that, as if more were needed.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      Kind of like the way in which Republican politicians go all teary-eyed when talking about the Great Communicator?

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      The problem with HRC for as long as I have been paying attention to such things is that the organization is more concerned with its own importance than accomplishing anything. This is yet another of a long list of examples. I don’t know why anyone is surprised, or why anyone would expect anything different. This is how inside the beltway operatives act. They saw a moment for self-promotion and they took it. It’s why HRC has been so amazingly ineffective for decades.

      • posted by Tom Scharbach on

        Whatever the problems with HRC (and I agree with you that HRC, like most Washington lobbying groups and think-tanks, is self-absorbed, self-seeking and largely ineffective), the hard-core social conservative uproar about the order is, I think, helpful.

        Most Americans think that workplace discrimination is already banned, and the spectacle being created by Tony Perkins, Brian Brown, Bryan Fischer and the rest of the crowd is almost certain to turn Americans off. In the case of the anti-gay movement, the louder the megaphone, the more they help us.

        • posted by Houndentenor on

          Exactly. I constantly have to explain that yes, in most states I could be fired for being gay and that would be legal. I usually have to provide a source because people still don’t believe that could be possible in 2014. Most companies, especially the large ones, wouldn’t do this. In fact most of them now have a policy against such things, and weren’t firing anyone for being gay long before they were asked by gay employees to put the policy in writing.

          The only big company I can think of (I’m sure there are others) where this will have an impact is Exxon/Mobil which does government contracting and which eliminated Mobil’s nondiscrimination policy in the merger with Exxon and keeps voting down the change in it’s annual shareholder meeting. Given the number of gay people I know who work for that company, I can say that the there’s little reason for them to reject this policy except for politics because they obviously aren’t firing people for being homosexual.

  4. posted by Mark on

    Since (I think, anyway) Stephen would oppose the executive order, since it will deny some religious business owners the freedom to fire their gay and lesbians, I would think he’d welcome the fact that Obama didn’t issue the order in 2009 and instead waited 5 years.

    I don’t think much of HRC, but it’s not as if they had much leverage. They could have told Obama in 2010 they wouldn’t have worked for his reelection, but standing on the sidelines while the opposition party’s candidate was running on a platform of banning all gay marriages through constitutional amendment would seem like a pretty bad tactic for a gay rights group.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      Since (I think, anyway) Stephen would oppose the executive order, since it will deny some religious business owners the freedom to fire their gay and lesbians, I would think he’d welcome the fact that Obama didn’t issue the order in 2009 and instead waited 5 years.

      In the past, although Stephen made frequent mention of President Obama’s failure to issue the order, and the political motivations Stephen read into that, he has not, to my knowledge, revealed his opinion on the order itself.

      As for me, I’m glad the order is issued, and I’m glad that the President resisted pressure to use the order to single out gays and lesbians for special discrimination.

      • posted by Mark on

        Stephen never says whether he favors ENDA or wanted an executive order. But as far as I can tell, he supports such a broad religious freedom and 1st amendment “freedom” exemption that any business owner inclined to discriminate would be covered under the exemption. So the order would have no effect.

        I agree that the order was a good thing, and that Obama’s resisting demands for a broad exemption also was good.

        • posted by Tom Scharbach on

          But as far as I can tell, he supports such a broad religious freedom and 1st amendment “freedom” exemption that any business owner inclined to discriminate would be covered under the exemption. So the order would have no effect.

          I think that there are two major problems with Stephen’s approach to the religious exemption:

          (1) The first is the problem you point out. However large or small the subset of business owners inclined to discriminate against gays and lesbians might be, the exemption would permit all of them to discriminate. If an order/law is going to permit everyone who wants to discriminate to do so, why bother with the order/law?

          (2) The second is that the religious exemptions as proposed apply to gays and lesbians and only gays and lesbians, setting up gays and lesbians as the objects of special, government-sanctioned discrimination not applicable to other similarly-situated groups. All that the religious exemptions as proposed accomplish is to continue and reenforce the idea that gays and lesbians are less than equal citizens.

          I don’t see the push for religious exemptions as having anything to do with religious freedom. I think that the proposed exemptions are a veiled attempt to gut the idea that all citizens should be treated equally under the law, as that principle applies to gays and lesbians.

          Stephen can dress it up all he wants — “expressive services” and all that — but it comes down to differential treatment of gays and lesbians, and that’s all it comes down to.

  5. posted by Houndentenor on

    I would have worded it differently, but on other blogs where the bloggers and commenters are more liberal I’ve said pretty much the same thing. Obama promised to do this in 2008. There’s no reason it should have taken this long. That said, there’s no way a president Romney would have done this, so better late than never. That’s not really good enough, but it’s good rather than bad news.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      Obama promised to do this in 2008. There’s no reason it should have taken this long.

      I agree. President Obama has accomplished quite a bit, but most of it, like this order, has been late out of the starting box, delayed until it is politically safe for him to move. In that respect, President Obama is fairly typical of the Democratic politicians I’ve worked with over the years, moving only after all the groundwork has been done and the landmines removed by gays and lesbians.

      That said, there’s no way a president Romney would have done this, so better late than never.

      I agree with this, too, and the observation can be extended to just about any Republican politician of national stature, including the crowd now elbowing for the nomination. Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and so on? Don’t make me laugh.

      The President has not moved quickly or decisively enough for my taste, on this and many other issues, but at least he is willing to move. That is more than I can say for any Republican candidate for the 2016 nomination.

  6. posted by Jorge on

    Every single president since Bill Clinton has done more to advance gay equality than any of his predecessors–and every single one of them did more in their first term than in their second. But someday, Ronald Quincy Reagan will be back to end the liberal insanity and declare war on welfare queens.

    Most of this is not important. Here’s what is: President Obama is also the first president to advance transgender equality. Now why is that? Why has the President of the United States taken a sudden interest not just in gay and lesbians, but also bisexuals (although they’re also covered under sexual orientation) and transgender people? If Barack Obama is not the hero of the transgender and bisexual rights movement, then who’s responsible?

    • posted by Doug on

      What exactly did George W. Bush do to advance gay equality besides campaign for a Constitutional Amendment for marriage being one man and one woman and fanning the anti-gay flames in his second re-election campaign. Bush did nothing to advance gay equality.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      But someday, Ronald Quincy Reagan will be back to end the liberal insanity and declare war on welfare queens.

      But of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but the Gipper only.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      Seconding Doug. What specifically did George W Bush do to advance gay rights in the US?

      • posted by Jorge on

        You want to hear my speech on the topic AGAIN?

        • posted by Doug on

          A speech is not necessary. . . the facts speak for themselves.

          • posted by Jorge on

            That didn’t prevent the more incompetent candidate from winning the primary, then the general election. Sometimes the facts that speak the loudest are only skin deep. Yes, that’s an intentional dig.

          • posted by Tom Scharbach on

            That didn’t prevent the more incompetent candidate from winning the primary, then the general election.

            Are referring to GWB’s triumph over John McCain in the 200o primaries and then his Supreme Court victory in the 2000 general election?

          • posted by Jorge on

            It’s hard for me to imagine how anyone could imagine that about Bush in retrospect.

            I’m referring to Barack Obama.

  7. posted by tom Jefferson 3rx on

    Given how bad things are for most people – gay or straight – in North Korea, it is pretty darn tacky to make light of the matter by turning it into a partisan hatchet job.

    President Obama and his administration has made important strides in “equal means equal”. It not going to be perfect or instant, because other actors are involved in public policy.

    Some of the policy improvements have come via Congress. ENDA would be a nice bill to pass, but their aren’t enough votes to get it passed.

    This is partly because the social conservatives have become something akin to a boil on the GOP. It is the type of boil that keeps popping up, and not likely to be fully drained soon

    Partly because some Democrats feel that such a bill won’t play well with voters. Partly because their willingness of politicians to put the national good before partisan interests and spin machines is rare

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      Democrats are scared shitless of the religious right. In large parts of the country they have good reason to be afraid. Polling shows growing support for lbgt rights, but the polls that matter show that it’s often (and though declining rapidly) a factor especially in off-year elections. Democrats didn’t even run anyone for Congress in my district and the Republicans did their best to out-bigot each other. It was disgusting. But then no one ever accused Democrats of having any backbone or standing up for anything or anyone.

  8. posted by Wilberforce on

    This is a good thing. The order was done, and without any religious exemption. It was very clever of the administration. They rightly saw that the SCOTUS decision could be interpreted narrowly, and that it need not apply to Obama’s order. Very clever indeed.
    As for it being late, the political aspects had to be calculated. For those who are constantly upset by this, please enter the real world.
    So this is a great thing on two levels. But leave it to Stephen to turn it into a hatchet job.

    • posted by Jorge on

      Without people to be upset over political calculations, there wouldn’t be political calucations in the first place.

  9. posted by tom Jefferson 3rd on

    I cannot thing of anything substantial that George W. Bush did to advance equal means equal.

    I think that the 9-1-1 victims fund did allow for same sex domestic partner’s, but I have no idea how much of that was a reflection of the administration or the president.

    Beyond this possibility, I cannot thing of anything substantial. I hear he backed the Texas anti-gay criminal law, until it got struck down by the court in 2003.

    Then he backed a federal ban on gay marriage, that even banned civil unions, which became a major issue via the likes of Karl Rove.

    Gay bashing under Karl Rove was a heavy part of the 2004 election.

  10. posted by Jorge on

    I cannot thing of anything substantial that George W. Bush did to advance equal means equal.

    You’d be hard-pressed to find a single thing that Bill Clinton did to advance equal means equal, too.

    Every single president since Bill Clinton (I mean inclusive of) has done more to advance gay equality than any of his predecessors–and every single one of them did more in their first term than in their second.

    • posted by clayton on

      You didn’t address the question, Jorge. First you tried to change the subject from Bush to Clinton, then you merely reasserted that Bush did more than Clinton to promote equality. Several people have asked for specifics about what Bush did, but you haven’t provided any.

  11. posted by Wilberforce on

    Clinton tried to get us military service right out of the gate. He had to compromise with dadt, which the military then betrayed by turning the policy into a witch hunt. That wasn’t Clinton’s fault.
    He signed doma, and he did sell us out politically on that one. But times were different then, and we were much weaker. He was doing the old dodge and weave in order to get other things done. But of course, it’s easier to blame everything on politicians rather than take any responsibility ourselves.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      But of course, it’s easier to blame everything on politicians rather than take any responsibility ourselves.

      As a general rule, politicians have supported “equal means equal” in public words and actions (and words more than actions) in direct proportion to (a) the effort we have expended to prepare the ground beforehand, and the success we have had in that effort, and (b) the pressure we have exerted on them. That is true both internally within the political parties and externally with the general public. The two work together; in general, a politician will not get too far ahead of public opinion and will not get out of sync with the party base.

      In all the years that I have been working toward “equal means equal”, I have probably encountered less than a three dozen politicians who were committed to “equal means equal” independent of that general rule — that is, “champions” who didn’t give a damn what the public or the party base thought about “equal means equal” and were willing to get out ahead of the public and antagonize the party base, pushing and pushing hard.

      Democrats have been ahead of the Republicans on the issues, historically — for example, the 1980 party platform endorsed non-discrimination, a step yet to be taken by Republicans — but that is not because Democrats are champions of “equal means equal” so much as it is because gays and lesbians affiliated with the Democratic Party have been pushing and shoving hard for 40+ years in the party.

      It has been a long slog; every sentient Democrat working on “equal means equal” over those years knows how hard and frustrating a journey it has been to “evolve” President Obama from his 1996 statement in support of marriage equality (during his first run for political office, the Illinois State Senate) to his 2012 statement in support of marriage equality (as President).

      I’ve never met Presidents Bush I, Clinton or Bush II, and I have no idea what their private views on “equal means equal” may be. I don’t much care.

      What I care about is what they did in office, and that is a mixed bag.

      President Bush I did not propose any legislation and issued no executive orders in support of “equal means equal” (and as far as I remember, said nothing much in public about it), but he signed the Ryan White Care Act, ending the drought on federal funding for AIDS care that existed during the Reagan administration.

      President Clinton signed Executive Order 13087, banning the federal government from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, something that Frank Karmeny was working on in the 1950’s. He proposed to end discrimination in the military, but settled for DADT, which turned out badly to say the least. He caved on DOMA. His public statements were supportive, which helped.

      President Bush II supported civil unions in 2004, in defiance of his party’s platform. He supported a federal constitutional ban on marriage equality. He leveraged public opposition to marriage equality to win reelection in 2004. He made a few symbolic gestures (appointing a gay to head the federal effort on AIDS, for example) but did nothing legislatively or by executive order.

      President Obama’s record has been more substantive, and more positive, but it has been far from perfect. Nonetheless, for all Stephen’s carping, President Obama has had a reasonably solid record supporting “equal means equal”, both in terms of public words and public actions.

      A fact that is sometimes missed is that public words and public actions by high officials help shape public opinion.

      The Gallup trending polls on marriage equality shows a sharp drop in public support for marriage equality in 2004, during the Bush/Rove anti-marriage amendment strategy. I think that a fair argument can be made that President Bush II’s deployment of that strategy set us behind several years in winning over the American public on marriage equality.

      Similarly, President Obama’s 2012 public support for marriage equality made a huge difference in the African-American community, in which support for marriage equality lagged the nation as a whole until the statement, and then turned around within months. I think that the Gallup trending polls also reflect a positive change in public opinion as a whole after that statement.

      So while I strongly believe that politicians embrace “equal means equal” in public words and actions in direct proportion to the effort we expend to make that happen, I acknowledge that political words and acts can help, or hurt, us in that effort.

      I sometimes laugh, or alternatively grind my teeth, at Stephen’s constant carping about Democrats. To the extent that he has the luxury of carping that Democrats are moving too slow to suit him, it is because those of us who are Democrats have been hard at work for years and years. If we had not been at work all those years, Stephen would not be able to complain that “Finally, after 5-plus years of ignoring pleas from a voting bloc that has disproportionately supplied funds, labor and votes to his party …“. If a Republican were president, there would be no executive order to carp about.

      • posted by Houndentenor on

        In other words, there was a time when neither party would do anything to advance gay rights. Gays in both parties worked very hard. One set got somewhere by working within their respective party and the other has not. To fault those in the other party for the lack of progress is laughable. One of the original founders of LCR was a family friend. I know how hard they worked to move the party on gay issues. This particular friend had left the GOP by 2004 and was working to elect Democrats. I do think at this point progress is being made among younger conservatives, especially the libertarian-leaning ones, but it will be decades before we see that manifest itself at the national level.

        • posted by Wilberforce on

          I agree with you both, except on one point. It’s not always how about much effort we put in.
          Random circumstances play a role. And our enemies often exploit circumstances. Or they just go all out against us, using us as scapegoats for other political goals. The media often go this route, and the power they wield over public opinion if frightening.

  12. posted by Jorge on

    Clinton tried to get us military service right out of the gate.

    President Clinton signed Executive Order 13087, banning the federal government from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation in employment.

    That’s a grand total of two things. Which is perhaps as it should have been, but like I said.

    President Bush II supported civil unions in 2004, in defiance of his party’s platform….

    He made a few symbolic gestures (appointing a gay to head the federal effort on AIDS, for example) but did nothing legislatively or by executive order.

    That’s already two, and you didn’t even parrot my usual spiel–which I am not going to repeat for you fellow long-timers for at least another six months. And you mentioned that the words and actions of politicans can help or hurt, though activism is the most important thing. I could not agree more.

    Like I said.

    Anyway, in other gay news, there’s an article on Yahoo News about HRC being mad the NY Giants hired a former player who opposes gay marriage very strongly (he said he’d give up his claim to fame if he could stop gay marriage–about as strong as you can get without being inflammatory) as some kind of personnel officer. “It’s disturbing and flies in the face of all the good work and image the NFL (the Giants?) does and promotes.” Oh, good grief, now they want a political ideology test? Shouldn’t you wait until you get something like 95% of the public with you? Anyway, I think I’ll mention this story if a certain racially explosive local story winds its way into one of my job’s required employee meetings. You know, as a friendly reminder that having a certain political viewpoint isn’t part of the job description.

    • posted by Doug on

      Saying he supported civil unions, and doing nothing, and appointing a gay man as a figurehead for an AIDS office is absolutely nothing compared to the damage he did by campaigning against marriage equality to curry favor with the religious right and actively promoting a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality.

  13. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    That’s already two, and you didn’t even parrot my usual spiel – which I am not going to repeat for you fellow long-timers for at least another six months.

    Jorge, I refuse to play this game with you. It is stupid and pointless.

    President Bush did a great deal more harm to “equal means equal” than he did good. That is an objective fact.

    His words and acts in support of gays and lesbians were largely symbolic. He issued a statement in support of civil unions — one time — and did not follow up with subsequent statements or acts. He did not use the “Bully Pulpit” at all. He apparently had a number of White House staffers who were gay. He appointed an “open homosexual” to administer the AIDS programs, and he nominated one or two “open homosexual” ambassadors.

    That’s the positive side of the ledger.

    On the negative side of the ledger, President Bush spoke out frequently against “equal means equal”. He referred to sodomy laws as a “symbolic affirmation of traditional values.”. He opposed marriage equality and trumpeted that fact – he went out of his way to speak out against the Massachusetts state court decision and called for a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality nationwide. He adopted the “special rights” meme to describe proposed steps toward “equal means equal”. He climbed onto the “activist judges” bandwagon. He described marriage equality as an attack on “the sanctity of marriage”. He said he would veto the Matthew Shepard Act if Congress enacted it.

    But worst of all, President Bush knowingly adopted a strategy of using the anti-marriage amendments in 2004 to energize the Republican social conservative base to ensure his own reelection as President. I know that you deny that the strategy ever existed, but your denial at this point comes under the category of willful ignorance. Karl Rove, who designed the strategy, has now spoken out about it. Ken Mehlman, who was instrumental in implementing the strategy, has spoken about it and apologized for his role in implementing it. Laura Bush has said that she urged the President not to use the strategy. Serious political scientists have documented the strategy. Despite your refusal to face the facts, there is no question about the strategy’s existence, and no question that President Bush knowingly used gays and lesbians as cannon fodder for short-term political gain.

    The effects of that strategy were devastating to “equal means equal”. The strategy resulted in 30-odd state constitutional amendments that we are now having to undo through the federal courts, at great cost in time and money. The strategy unleashed a torrent of bile in the states that set back public opinion. Gallup trending polls show a 4-5% drop in support for marriage equality during 2004, the only statistically significant downdrop in the otherwise upward trend toward acceptance over the course of the last two decades.

    You need not “parrot your usual spiel”. We have heard it, and we do not argue with the facts you recite. President Bush does not seem to have harbored any personal animosity toward gays and lesbians, and he did not seem to care about sexual orientation when it came to his political or White House staff. He appointed a few gays and lesbians to responsible public offices in his administration. He left Executive Order 13087 in place. Where we disagree is twofold: (1) you refuse to acknowledge any of the negative statements and actions that President Bush took, including but not limited to the anti-marriage amendment strategy, and (2) we differ with your conclusion tha President Bush advanced the cause of “equal means equal”. On balance, he most definitely did not.

  14. posted by Tom Jefferson III on

    I have heard that President Bush I signed a bill (like 1990) that collected statistical data on hate crimes and that this particular bill did include sexual orientation. Then again, I heard that he was a moderate, pro-choice Republican, until Reagan tapped him for the VP slot.

    Clinton did try with the military issue — but the votes simply where that their in Congress and the religious right was much better funded and organized. I think he added a hate crimes law to the UCMJ and “Don’t Harass” to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.

    Yeah, “DOMA” was a sellout. Granted, I suspect it was mostly pushed by Republicans to appeal to the “religious right”, but I suspect a fair number of moderate and conservative Democrats backed it as well. Even Paul Wellstone — one of most progressive U.S. Senators at the time — could only express public support for domestic partnership benefits. The ENDA bill came, like one or two votes away from being passed around the same time as the DOMA bill passed.

    At the federal level things got better under the Clinton administration, but it was slow and imperfect progress.

  15. posted by tom Jefferson 3rd on

    We owe many people – many still unsung – for the level of human rights progress achieved. Be it for women, LGBT, people of color, disabled. It’s rarely a one “man band”.

    It’s not all about party politics or politicians. YET, America is a two party system, and so what the two parties say and do with regards to gay rights matters.

    Initially, only third parties would touch gay rights issues.

    Gay Democrats gradually got their party to move forward on the issue of gay rights. It was a slow process and not perfect today.

    Gay Republicans should be doing something similar. Some have been, with limited success.

Comments are closed.